Category: ALASKA_CN PATA_West_Wildfires_2022_Related Wildfires_CN

An unusual spate of lightning has ignited more than 50 new wildfires in Alaska, worsening air quality, spurring communities to prepare to evacuate and exacerbating an already historic fire season in the state.

A record number of acres have burned this month in Alaska, forcing Indigenous people from their homes, compromising air quality and stretching firefighting resources thin.

The exits make it far less likely that drilling will take place soon in a vast, unspoiled landscape that has achieved iconic status among environmentalists and has been fought over for half a century. An Anchorage real estate investor and the state-owned Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority still hold leases there, but industry analysts say they lack the financial power and expertise to develop the remote area on their own.

By Alaskan standards, the gravel road that an isolated community near the Aleutian Islands wants to build to connect to an airport is not a huge project. But because it would be cut through a federal wildlife refuge, the road has been a simmering source of contention since it was first proposed decades ago.

The Biden administration on Wednesday took a major legal step toward protecting Bristol Bay in Alaska, one of the world’s most valuable sockeye salmon fisheries that also sits atop enormous copper and gold deposits long coveted by mining companies.

Farmers in Alaska know that it can be hard to grow in the state’s climate, but as the climate rapidly warms in the far north, that could change.
Climate change could enable Alaska to grow more of its own food. Agriculture is one area in which climate change may actually bring some benefit to the state, but not without stumbling blocks and uncertainties.

Some theories suggest that this “Arctic greening” will help counteract climate change. The idea is that since plants take up carbon dioxide as they grow, rising temperatures will mean Arctic vegetation will absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, ultimately reducing the greenhouse gases that are warming the planet.

During a typical fall, almost a million chum salmon pour into Alaska’s Yukon River, a torrent of wild fish that has sustained the economy and Indigenous culture in the far north for generations. Last year, that run collapsed, with salmon trickling upstream at a 10th of normal levels, forcing the state to airlift frozen fish from other regions to feed the population.

U.S. Senators Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) today urged the Biden administration to fully commit to implementing the “American Energy, Jobs & Climate Plan.” With last week’s announcement that the Biden administration intends to work with the European Union to help reduce European reliance on Russian natural gas, the senators are calling on the administration to take serious steps to reverse its anti-American energy policies and implement a plan that offers realistic and achievable solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, lower energy costs, create millions of jobs for hard-working Americans, and provide energy security to America and our allies.

In the pristine expanse of Alaska’s interior lies a dirty secret: some of the most polluted winter air in the United States can be found in and around Fairbanks.
The Fairbanks North Star Borough, which includes Alaska’s second largest city, routinely exceeds limits set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for particle pollution that can be inhaled and cause myriad health problems.